let me know what you think peps like the idea? a little feed back pl

chapter2

It felt like a life time, but like all things they must come to an end. The pain pulled back and moved to my chest. As my heart sped up and the pain increased in my chest. Until it stopped beating. I lay there with my eyes closed. Waiting for it to start hurting again. Slowly I open my eyes. I look around talking out loud, "what the hell just happened?" No one is there to answer so I go to stand up, and before I realize it I'm on my feet. I look at the moon. Still full but it looks bigger, brighter, and clearer. Well, not too much time has passed. I will have to find my way home and call Em. I look for my bike, but it's not there. My throat is so dry, I have to find some water. I look for the road, but it's not there. What the f***, "not cool Em" I yell. He must have pranked me. Whatever he gave me, this is the worst trip I have ever been on. I must have had a reaction to it. You would think the Doc would have got me to the hospital. I here water running and I find myself at the stream. What the hell, I moved so fast. I must still be cranking. I get on my stomach and take long drinks. The thirst does not diminish. Then I hear it thump, thump. I'm on my feet racing to the sound. A nine foot grizzly, eating a fresh killed deer. I launch myself at his throat. Biting down salty goodness flows down my throat. He tries to fight back, but I break his arms holding him tight. I keep drinking my dinner. The smell of wet pennies are in the air, I suck at the wound as the blood stops gushing. I shake him as I take the last drop; like I would with a diet coke can to make sure I had it all. I let go of the body and have a small break down, as I realize what I just did. He made me into a vampire! Is that why I'm all alone out here, they dumped me so I wouldn't hurt anyone? Shit, oh man, this is not good. I wipe my face and my hand comes away bloody. Slowly I stick a finger in my mouth. Yep taste great. As I move I feel sloshy my throat is only mildly sore.

I look to the sky and see it getting lighter. Shit better get out of the sun. I start running. Looking for a house or some where to after an hour it's getting brighter I climb a redwood to the top. Looking out I see nothing but forest. Shit do I die, burn in the sun, do I do both? I spy a cave to the left only a mile away. I look to the right and the east is getting brighter. I panic and jump, forgetting how high I am. Falling over two hundred plus feet I hit a lower branch and without thinking leap off and reach the ground, running for the cave. Less than few minutes I'm at the cave open. I smell a mouthwatering smell. A male lion hissing at me his claws rake my arm removing my right shirt sleeve. As I push him to the ground I drink him down. Well better than grizzly, gives new meaning to finger liking good. I toss him out, he flies 100 yards from the cave. I move to the back a good twenty feet it should keep me out of the light. I sit down waiting to see if I die for the day. The Cullen's walked in the day but they had yellow eyes. The guy that bit me had red eyes and it was night. I saw light creep in the front of the cave. Well I guess I don't die. I inch forward putting the tip of my finger in the light. The light refracts shooting rainbow colors into the cave.

I wish I knew where I was but I was scared to death to leave and meet a person. I had no control when I smelled the bear or lion, I just lunged and drank. Well this is home till I can stop and think before I eat. Weeks turned into months. Seasons came and went. I learned that meat-eaters taste the best lion, bear, and wolf yum. Deer while filling was like eating broccoli. I like it ok but it's not like steak. It's been twenty years and I look the same. The red eyes only lasted a year then changed to a golden brown. I looked an awful lot like Edward. My red high lights in my hair are deeper. I had a six pack, a swimmers build. Edward and I could almost pass for brothers, same height and weight. I had a lot of time on my hands as I never sleep. So I made a home out of stone the blocks. Fitted together so tight that no mortar was needed. I made a sorcerer's tower sixty foot round five stories high. My hands became my tools, fingernails sharper than diamonds. No door, you had to jump forty feet to the opening on the fourth floor. I learned to tan hides, sculpt art out of solid rock, and carve wood in to furniture. All by trial and era. I had some idea how to do these things but had never done them.

Last week was the first time I was able to decide not to just kill after smelling the lion. It was my favorite food but I saw she had two cubs so I took a deer and left the carcass where she would find it. My little way of giving back, a lot of animals hang around my tower looking for the leftovers. I have more skins and pelts that I will ever use and the meat does me no good. I was home working on a chess set out of quarts when the best, and I do mean best smell hit my nose. Looking out my window I see four men in pelts chasing a deer. It took all I had not to go and drink them dry. Looking at my home as I stepped to the door the light shining off me they turned tail and ran. Not ready to leave then is what that means. The Cullen's spent hours with people and never ate them. Just means I have to work harder, it would be nice to talk with someone.

They kept coming back leaving gifts, flowers, feathers, totems, and skins. They were still mouthwatering but I started to think of them as mine. It took two years of this but finally I decided to make contact. He was a young man maybe fourteen. I had realized that they sent the young men here like a spirit quest. As he placed his bundle on the alter they had made I jumped down and ran to stand in front of him. He fell to the ground putting his forehead to the earth muttering. They were primitives and again I wondered where on earth I was. Very carefully I lifted his head. I had found that all animals were fragile, skin paper thin. He looked at me in wonder. We started to learn how to communicate I would point to a thing and he would tell me its name. He spent a week teaching me his langue my mind learned fast, every word locked in. They had no written word, passing knowledge through song and chants. His name was Torick. He watched me hunt and drink. I told him I was other, they had no name for vampire and I was not going to change that. Eventually they sent a war party to see what had happened to him. They came upon us playing checkers. I had taught him how to play as he taught me his language. The six men fell to their knees, foreheads to the ground.

Looking over at them I ask, "what do you wish?"

The elder in the group all of forty tells me they seek Torick.

I motion to the boy, "he is here." It was a sunny day and my skin sparkled like millions of diamonds.

"What do you wish Arasd? Mac has told me wonders, tails, and has shown me how to play checkers."

"Your mother weeps thinking you dead Torick. Your bride awaits you back at camp."

The boy smiles at me he is the first person I have talk to since the change. "Time for me to head home Mac; Come with us, see our people."

"I would like to my friend but too many and I will hurt you it is hard with your friends here, I wish to hunt them. You have seen me it would not be good. Come see me again." I stood giving him the checker set I had made. "Play and come back I will have a new set made and we will play again." I ran to my home and jumped up to my door the six men fell to their knees again and put their heads to the ground.

"Get up get up I tell you." Torick shakes his head. "The hunter will be displeased with you he yelled at me for doing what you are doing now. You do not wish to displease him, he kills like the wind, and takes your blood; all fear him in the woods."

I look at Torick and smile. "Come if you are in need my friend I have a debt owed to you."

I watch as he takes his game and shoes the others along. He came back every season like clockwork for twenty five years. I had taught him chess and he was very good but before my change I was almost master class 1735 USCF.

On the twenty sixth season his grandson Torell came telling me of his passing. A rival tribe attacked in the night killing him and taking Selcet Torell's sister.

I have not felt the killing rage for almost thirty years but now I was seeing red. He was my friend, they were mine. I told him to climb on my back and hold on. I knew were the village was, two years ago I made my first visit. It was hard but by breathing as little as possible allowed me to stay for a game of chess with Torick. Ten miles and four minutes later we are standing at the camp, tepees burnt, people crying. His chess set flung all over the ground. Shifting my shoulders I pick up there sent. He takes the hint, and slides off. Falling to the ground disoriented. It is time to hunt. I will not drink them but they will pay. It took all of ten minutes to find them they had taken twenty girls between ten and fifteen. There were thirty men all over twenty. I moved so fast they never saw me till the cries of pain started. Every man but one now had two broken legs and two broken arms. I had not spilled a drop of blood. The one I left unhurt I had in my vice like grip. "Look, see what happens to those that hurt my people. Go back to your tribe and tell them the next time I will do the same to all of them."

"What of my friends?"

"Food for the wolfs, lions, and bears. Be thankful you are not among them and if I find you hurt any of these girls I will hunt you. Now run little rabbit." He took off like a shot, never looking back at his friends.

I looked and spotted Selcet as one of the older ones I could tell she had been used.

She put her hands around my neck crying, "thank you hunter thank you." Only Torick ever called me Mac. I led them home hunting for them. Selcet cooked the doe I brought back. I was very careful not to bite the deer. I used my fingernail to slice open the deer's vein. I learned that my venom while fine for animals had an adverse effect on people once mixed with non-human blood turning it into a poison for humans. What took me ten minutes took two days to get back the girls were on their last legs.

Torell met us half a mile from home with ten boys. Most of the men were hurt or dead. When we walked into camp they all got down and placed their heads on the ground. I looked around and I was the only one standing the sick had crawled out even children as young as two.

"Stand all of you get up you know I don't like when you do this. Torell they will not bother you again I will give that man a few days and then go and kill him he mated Melly." I looked at the nine year old only thankful Selcet told me she was too young for her first blood. Sick bastards I hope they rot in hell or where ever they go.

Word got out, my people never were bothered again. I stayed with them for over two hundred years keeping track of my friend's family. Human's blood no longer had the pull on me. I had never slipped, even open wounds were no longer a problem. I ruled the hunger. My friend Em would be proud. The tribe was a city. I had helped them with better tools they learned how to build. I gave them the abc's and the written word. They farmed and raised small game for food. The wild predators were on the outside of their walls. A descendant of Torick was always tasked as my spokesmen. Years could go by before I would visit the city but the spokesmen would come to my tower every season like his ancestor Torick. Retall was an old man in his late fifties stooped and walking with a stick when he came.

"Hunter this will be my last trip my time in the trees grows short."

I pat his arm. "Do not send another Retall I will be gone it is time to see what is out there."

He starts to kneel but I hold him up. "Do not leave us hunter!"

"It is time be good to each other I will look in on you from time to time. Teach the others, show them compassion, but never forget to stand up for your selves."

It was a good time to leave today was my 225 birthday I closed up my home sealing it up tight so no one could get in. I had made small forays to the west and ran into the sea. When I found how close it was only an hour run I spent many a day there. My next trip would be to the east. I will see how far this land went. I ran for three days over great mountains, rolling plains, and great rivers. I had new foods bison, ram, and moose to name a few. Lion was still my favorite. I hit another sea and a disturbing thought began to form maybe I was in the same place that the vampire bit me. I remembered Alice's last words and the incomplete one. "He has a wild talent he moves through TI**". Could it be? I hope I am wrong but the more I ran going south and then west again the word became clearer, TIME! I looked at it from all sides if I was right I am way back, there are no Europeans here, and they barely have the bow here. If this is America I'm screwed. I don't age at least not that I can tell. I have yet to see another vampire I mean we are kind of hard to miss in the sunlight. It would be nice to know someone that isn't going to die in a few short decades.

I spent another 125 years mapping in my head the America's. From sea to shining sea as the song goes. I was somewhere where Mexico will be when I met my first immortal. He was crouched over a tribesman hissing at me with his red eyes glaring. Till the day I am turned to dust I will never know why he didn't fight me. Maybe he was lonely too I don't know or care he never told me. We both knew some Indian dialects it was enough to get us started his name was Ature. He was from Egypt how he got here was quite a story. It seemed that six immortals or as they would be called later vampires found the land bridge up in the Arctic Circle. They swore to keep it secret this new land of plenty. He taught me Egyptian, Greek, and Germanic. By what he told me I had gone back thousands of years. He told me of his home and the faro's. He was curious about my eyes and diet. He had a talent as he called it he could disappear bending light so it seemed like he was not there only sound and sent could give him away. We ran together for 20 years and then one day we saw another. He faded away all of a sudden. I did to, I could hear him running away and I followed his footsteps we stopped two days later in the center of Canada.

"How did you do that, it's my gift?"

I just shrugged maybe my gift is to copy another's gift. Ature looked at me we had got along well for the last 20 years I would even call him a friend.

"Do it again without me doing it."

The gift was just there in my head in a little corner I had never used before. I reached and just turned it on like a switch and faded away. I shut it off and he could see me again. "Why did we run?"

"He is a very bad immortal he would not think twice about ripping us apart and burning the pieces."

"Why ?"

"He hates to share. He would kill all five I guess six now who know about this land then it would be his alone. He has a strong gift he can hold you still so you can't move then he slowly rips you apart. I saw him do it once, horrible she screamed the whole time. He has to be able to see you for it to work so I was the only one who would not be affected if he used it on me I would just fade and be free. I think he would try taking me down before we meet with the others."

"When are you meeting them?"

"We were heading that way on the shortest day of the year this year."

If it was one thing we vampires could tell it was how much light there was in any given day. Only a week away it was quit the coincident running into him. "Can I come with you Ature?"

"It could be dangerous they may try to kill you for being here."

"Hey I found my own way here no one showed me besides it would be nice to meet the others." He had told me a little about the others a few names and that they were all gifted. I found out the one we ran from was from somewhere where the USSR will be, his name was Traolk.

They met at the edge of the land bridge. Ature and I came concealed. We saw Traolk and Shetra a female ripping two others apart. "Vile snakes" Ature whispered to me. They were burning pieces of the others. "They were my friends."

He had helped me greatly and we both knew I owed him. He taught me how to fight and kill an immortal. "What do you wish to do?"

Ature was over 2 thousand years old one of the dead was a childhood friend. "KILL THEM BOTH!"

It was over before we knew it. They knew he was there, they thought my sent was a kill he had recently made. I had Traolk's head before Shetra could leap at my friend. Then I ripped her head off as he held her. Her gift was strength, she was as strong as a newborn.

"We burn everything but the heads. I want them to feel it all." He ripped small pieces off and fed them to the fire. I watch as they silently screamed. At the last he took the heads and pitched them in. That was when I learned that my gift worked when gifted immortals died.

The spot were Ature's gift was in my head I felt two other pop into place. I had a look of horror on my face. "What the fuck was that?"

He turned from the fire and saw the look on my face. "It had to be done. They would have come for me and found out about you. It was them or us."

"I think I gained their abilities Ature."

"Use Traolk's power on me."

I flipped through the three powers in my head looked at him and felt a wave of power reach out and grab him. He quickly faded away and I stopped then he reappeared.

"It is a good thing you are a good immortal and you have a strong sense of right and wrong."

It was shortly after that we parted company. I asked him to leave my city alone and he agreed seeing as I didn't drink them I should be allowed to keep them as pets.

He asked where I was going and I told him I wished to meet other immortals.

Last he herd there were only fifty or sixty out there. Making a new one was very hard he only knew of three that could stop once they tasted the blood. All over a thousand years old. Most could trace their lines to one of the three. He asked me once who was my maker and I told him a small bit of the truth. How he was killed by another just after I was bitten, how his teeth were ripped from my flesh. How I woke alone in this place, unsure how I got here. We shook hands, "until our paths cross again Ature far well."